Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Lessons in futility, personified...

Remember the show Bewitched? How she would crinkle her nose and presto it would be done?

That's what I need right now. Instead I have a missing computer, a desk that's too big to move, a need to buy a new desk to fit into the spot where the computer will go when it comes back home, and a living room piled up with dresser drawers full of clothes that need to be sorted for give-aways.

Plus I moved two dressers from room to room last night, leaving one of them in the hallway where Eva bashed into it with her face on the way to the bathroom during the night, so that she now has two big scratches on her cheek and she has to get school photos taken on Thursday. And then after lying awake for about an hour after the furniture-face altercation, I came to the realisation that although that big old desk will technically fit into the new office, there is no way in hell we are going to be able to get it into the room.

So I moved both dressers back to their original places, which confused the hell out of the cat, and no doubt pissed off Eva as all her face-bashing was therefore in vain, and measured out the new office space for a new piece of semi-disposable Swedish furniture.

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Update:

Just back from IKEA where Eva and I got a new desk and two new office chairs - one for her room, one for the office. When we got all the boxes of JERKER bits and BONNY chairs and one SNILLE out to the parking lot, we realised we had no bloody idea how to fold down the back seats in the Pathfinder.

Eva: "This is so retarded!"

Me: "If worst comes to worst we are phoning your dad and getting him to bring the truck"

And then I got out the Pathfinder manual and read it out to Eva in the IKEA parking lot, and we figured it out! And we high-fived and pounded fists and strutted around the parking lot like a couple of bad-asses.

So now, we have six boxes of semi-disposable but rather sassy Scandinavian furniture on our living room floor, in addition to the dresser drawers full of charity clothes.

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P.S. Our computer is away from home because I kept getting a weird error message when I was trying to install the wireless adapter, saying I had a USB incompatability and needed to install a service pack, but when I did I was told it was the wrong service pack, so I took the whole fucking thing into my neighbourhood computer shop, where they have had it for two days.

23 comments:

That sounds like quite the adventure, and very similar to what is going on at my house right now. Your lucky with the new digs, my dad hates Ikea with a passion, so we're stuck with 1980s shit that could survive several natural disasters and i'm sure still not move, the stuff is so heavy.Hope Eva faces heals! And I've had that car manual moment myself ;)

It DOES sound like what's going on in your house, Allison, except that so far nobody has had any creepy china dolls fall on their head.

We've got a bunch of the heavy old crap too - although ours is more 1950s vintage. Jerry's folks gave us a whole bunch of stuff when we moved here from Ontario and everybody in Calgary said, "oooh look at all your antiques!" and we said "those aren't antiques, just old crap". Of course in Calgary, anything over 40 years old is an antique.

Holy jeeze!! How frustrating that must have been! Having everything disorganized and in places they shouldn't be makes me want to pull my hair out! Hopefully all the new furniture helps get everything back into it's place, and man, I hope Eva's "furniture face" gets better *winces*. I could understand why she'd be upset about that, but hey, you made up for it by getting her the new office chair, right? :P

Oh man, Alana, there's nothing that bugs me more than clutter. My soul craves order, so this is no way for a wannabe minimalist to live. Fortunately it is short-term and Eva is even cleaning her room, all on her own initiative! I have photographic proof.

Bad ass seems to be coming up a lot lately. Allison's piering, near moshing in IKEA parking lots ;) and my hair is black.

Good luck with the computer problems and IKEA furniture assembly. (And school photos, I always hated them...necessary evil...I guess. Mom's love them! Yes even the ones with facial scratches. I have a sleeping photo of Ella and she looks like a Star Trek alien b/c she fell in gravel. It looks terrible but think of the memories! It could be funny one day?)

Watch out for that...tree!I told you that wireless software was tricky... I hope your assembly of the Ikea funiture goes well. I have two Ikea pieces done and two Home Depot pieces done. I was lucky there was a 'not so old' metalic computer desk to spare in my sisters basement. So far all my furniture is what she could spare and what I can assemble. My good stuff stays in Montreal. It would cost more to move it than to replace it,(sort of). Remember when you said you get 5$ eveytime Ikea is mentioned? lolYou would be rolling in it by now if that was true.

It's too bad she didn't get a black eye as well, Kees. That would have been a school photo with real character. One chair is assembled thus far...

I could use that IKEA blood money by now too, Barbara W, to make up for the pile that I left there yesterday.I was doing fine with the router installation, so that Jerry's laptap works fine now, but the service packs proved to be far too Catch 22 for me.

Ben, if I see a couple of black Malung recliners I shall liberate them and send them to you, because no doubt they got lost on the way to your store. They are quite stylish too!Sadly, my computer time is always somewhat limited, as Eva and I both figure that we absolutely need to be on the computer right now, all the time.

We were showing off some extreme strutting when we figured out those seats, Will, except now I can't figure out how to put the centre one back up.Why must changes in household configurations always cause such a domino effect? I think I just have too much stuff.

I just hope those pathfinder's are not like the trailblazer when it comes to getting the spare tire out from under it. If so...Ya might want to read up in that owers manual about how to do this. It was a hellofa tricky situation when hubby started trying to change our first flat. Geees the man was beside himself trying to find the hole for the tiretool. I thought it was sooo funny. Oh well thank goodness I wasn't alone on this ride. Good for you in following those seat directions. Because knowing me I wouldn't have been much help. ( inserts laughing too hard to read )

I wouldn't be surprised if it was super-complicated, Ocean. Judging from how complicated the seat folding was (and I remember struggling to get the rear window defrost working last winter), the tire will be unbelievable.

I haven't even had a chance to open the IKEA catalogue yet, Barbara W, but I'll be sure to look for the well-hung dog. Thanks for the heads-up.